Monday, February 17, 2014
Monday, February 10, 2014
Things are going pretty well!
Hello everyone!
How are you? I'm pretty good. Things are going pretty well up in here!
We had a pretty good week this week. Something that we have really been struggling with lately has been finding new investigators, but last week we found 8 new investigators and this week the Lord really blessed us again by helping us to find 10 NEW INVESTIGATORS. It was such a good blessing. I think that it was one of the first times in my mission that I actually found my own investigators. I think everyone in our teaching pool right now is someone that we have found since I came. I have such a strong testimony on the power of prayer and fasting. That was what I fasted for this past fast Sunday and it really has brought so many blessings to us. Now the important thing is for us to find those members who will be the best fellowshipper and then teach them the doctrine clearly and then.. WHAM! Baptism! :)
We had a Branch Missionary Fireside this week for our branch and basically I was in charge because the other two Elder's don't know so much, so I had to do everything and I was SO stressed. But it turned out pretty good. We had something like 50 people attend, about half of which were investigators or potential investigators.
Haha other than that, the week was pretty normal. We did get a pretty good referral from a sister living in a town outside of Visak called Gajuwaka. She is pretty good. I called her and invited her to our Branch Missionary Fireside and she came! She is new to town and she is looking for friends, however, she still has not shifted into our area. Hopefully this week or next week she will shift. Also another self-referral is shifting into our area and so hopefully she will shift this week and then we will snag her!
Things are looking up. I'm finding that the Lord truly blesses us as we strive to do EVERYTHING that we can. He wants us to succeed in His work and when we diligently work with all our heart, might, mind, and strength, then the Lord labors with you. (Jacob 5:70-75) I'm so grateful for all the Lord's blessings, especially missionary work!
President Berrett is coming this week and I have an interview with him today at 2:45! Hopefully things go okay.. :)
Love,
Elder Head
Elder Head
Monday, February 3, 2014
Jam-packed week of missionary work!!
Hello everyone!
This was a pretty good week! It was definitely challenging and frustrating all rolled up into one jam-packed week of missionary action! Haha really though it was a pretty good week.
The Zone Leaders here in Visakhapatnam zone received some revelation as to how they can help our zone to progress and become more effective and also have more work. They called their idea Finding Week. The whole focus of the week was to hit our key indicator for finding new investigators. Our key indicator is 8 new investigators. That is a pretty high goal, but I really felt like we could achieve it. It was something that we definitely needed because we were desperately in need of finding new investigators.
The week started off pretty rough. Our members were all busy with stuff this week and things were looking pretty bleak, but we found two new investigators on Tuesday through a part-member family and her friend. Then we didn't find any new investigators until Saturday night, where we contacted an investigator referral. We were up to 3 and Sunday wasn't looking too hot.
However, Saturday during the day I was able to knock on a few doors (and drag my companion along with me) and we set two appointments for Sunday. So after church I took a member and my companion took a member to meet all the appointments we had set. I visited those two families, one asked us to come tomorrow and the other one I was able to teach. Count it: 3 new investigators. Then I went and taught another investigator and she referred me to her cousin. We taught her a lesson and chalk another new investigator up for Elder Head! All I needed was my companion to meet this one part-member and we would hit our goal.....
He did it!
We hit our goal and I was so happy that everything worked out. I know that the Lord blesses us as we exercise our faith and trust in Him and those that He calls as leaders. I know that the Lord blessed us and will continue to bless us as we exercise our faith.
From the pictures that you sent mom, it looked like Dad was a big purple marshmallow ;) haha and Greg looked like he stuffed some acorns in his cheeks. Maybe you two can be gym buddies? :)
Happy birthday Holden! Congrats on turning 12 and becoming a big boy! Now that you are about to become a deacon, you need to stop wearing your baby diapers and playing with your barbie dolls okay? :)
Love you!
Have a great week!
Elder Head
Monday, January 27, 2014
Headache free ;) 1/26/14
Hello everyone!!
Sorry that you didn't get a chance to hear another one of my fascinating letters this week, but.... I had a large headache last week and I DO put a lot of thought into these letters, so I didn't want to aggravate my large brain too much by writing a letter..
The last two weeks have been pretty good. We are just working hard and doing our best to find new investigators, teach them, and baptize them! Then help them to stay active. Haha. It's been pretty good. We are kind of focusing right now on activation. Our branch has a ton of women who show up to church, but maybe only 10-15 priesthood holders. We are working with some people to help them to be active and receive the priesthood, but we need more help from the branch.
Our branch president hinted at having a branch family home evening, but in India that's really hard. The distance is too far and the cost too much for many people to come. So he asked us to figure out a way to make it work. Well we got to thinking, and I had an idea for group family home evenings according to location and what not. So we went and I made up a plan for this idea and then we presented the plan to the Branch Council yesterday and they loved it!
In our plan, we have divided the branch into 6 groups according to location. In each group there will be a group leader who will be in charge of inviting ALL members in the area -- active and less-active. Then they are in charge for all the stuff that would go into a Family Home Evening. To start, it will only be once a month, but hopefully it can transform the branch and unify them. We were pretty pleased with the response and we have high hopes that this will bless the branch in many ways.
Other than that, we don't have too much news. We had an investigator named Ravi come to church on Sunday. He is really good. We found him while tracting and he had a good experience at church. We are hoping that he can be baptized on February 9. We'll see.
One cool thing is that this month (February) we will have a MISSION CONFERENCE. Everyone from the whole mission will be going to Bangalore and listen to an Apostle, Presidency of the Seventy, Elder Funk (he's coming back!), one of the Presiding Bishopric, and an Area Seventy. I'm pretty excited to meet an Apostle and hear them all speak. And I'm a little excited to see all my mission friends. :)
I hope that everything at home is going well. Know that I love you all and think of you often. You are in my prayers!
Love,
Elder Head
Sorry that you didn't get a chance to hear another one of my fascinating letters this week, but.... I had a large headache last week and I DO put a lot of thought into these letters, so I didn't want to aggravate my large brain too much by writing a letter..
The last two weeks have been pretty good. We are just working hard and doing our best to find new investigators, teach them, and baptize them! Then help them to stay active. Haha. It's been pretty good. We are kind of focusing right now on activation. Our branch has a ton of women who show up to church, but maybe only 10-15 priesthood holders. We are working with some people to help them to be active and receive the priesthood, but we need more help from the branch.
Our branch president hinted at having a branch family home evening, but in India that's really hard. The distance is too far and the cost too much for many people to come. So he asked us to figure out a way to make it work. Well we got to thinking, and I had an idea for group family home evenings according to location and what not. So we went and I made up a plan for this idea and then we presented the plan to the Branch Council yesterday and they loved it!
In our plan, we have divided the branch into 6 groups according to location. In each group there will be a group leader who will be in charge of inviting ALL members in the area -- active and less-active. Then they are in charge for all the stuff that would go into a Family Home Evening. To start, it will only be once a month, but hopefully it can transform the branch and unify them. We were pretty pleased with the response and we have high hopes that this will bless the branch in many ways.
Other than that, we don't have too much news. We had an investigator named Ravi come to church on Sunday. He is really good. We found him while tracting and he had a good experience at church. We are hoping that he can be baptized on February 9. We'll see.
One cool thing is that this month (February) we will have a MISSION CONFERENCE. Everyone from the whole mission will be going to Bangalore and listen to an Apostle, Presidency of the Seventy, Elder Funk (he's coming back!), one of the Presiding Bishopric, and an Area Seventy. I'm pretty excited to meet an Apostle and hear them all speak. And I'm a little excited to see all my mission friends. :)
I hope that everything at home is going well. Know that I love you all and think of you often. You are in my prayers!
Love,
Elder Head
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| Elder Head and Elder Sharma w/Mother Teresa |
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| Visakhaptnam District searching for investigators |
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| This photo is evidence that Ryan FINALLY received his Christmas package!!! It only took 55 days to arrive! We sent him this tie to represent the "short tie-m" he had left on his mission! |
Friday, January 24, 2014
No official letter this week
No official letter this week as Ryan had a migraine....poor little guy! He was reserving all of his energy to compose a couple of essays in order to complete his application for BYU. Other than that he said they had a good week. The mission is also waiting for a new batch of American missionaries that had been called but have been waiting several months for the Indian government to grant the issuance of their visas. Ryan is excited to possibly have the opportunity to help train these new missionaries. We found of couple of pictures of Elder Head on his companion's facebook page (Elder Sharma from UT). Have a great week!
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| Elder Head and his apartment companions....everyone in his apartment are all from America! |
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| Elder Head maybe looking to get a "tan" at the beach?? |
Monday, January 13, 2014
A pretty good week in Visak - 1/12/14
Hello everyone!!
This week was a pretty good week! There were transfers this week, but no one in our house was transferred so it is just me and Elder Sharma and Elder Aydelott and Elder Willis. Four Americans in one house. It's pretty good I guess. In other news, my trainer, Elder Vaiphei, finished his mission this week and is returning home to Delhi. He is the only Church member from where he is from, so he is looking to baptize his family and get the Church started and established in his home tow. Pretty cool stuff!
This week was a pretty good week. I heard from some of the members in my last area in the Philippines that four of the investigators that we taught got baptized! So that is pretty exciting news! They were all really good and so that makes me really happy. Two of them are about mission age and both are hoping that a year from now they can also serve missions. It is so cool to see the Lord's hand in the work that goes on here.
Other than that, we have a few investigators that are progressing. One of them, his name is Ravi. He is 16 and he is studying in what would be in the U.S. his junior year of high school. He is really really smart. He speaks almost perfect English. His father passed away while he was a kid and so he studies everyday, goes to school, and then he goes to work from 5 to 11. Then Saturday and Sunday he also works from 11 to 11. He is the busiest kid I have ever met. He makes only 2400 rupees per month. In the U.S. at the rate he is getting paid, would be making 40 times more for the hours that he works than he does here. It's amazing. He has incredible faith and I'm honored to teach him. Oh and we tracted into him which is like the 4th investigator I have ever found tracting.
Things here are good. Slow, but good. We continue to work in all diligence. That is the key. Working through trials may be one of the hardest things that we have to do, but that is when real growth comes. As we come to understand the Lord, His purposes and works, the Plan of Salvation, and the Atonement of Jesus Christ, working through the trials means everything. I'm grateful for all I've learned on my mission and will continue to learn.
Love,
Elder Head
This week was a pretty good week! There were transfers this week, but no one in our house was transferred so it is just me and Elder Sharma and Elder Aydelott and Elder Willis. Four Americans in one house. It's pretty good I guess. In other news, my trainer, Elder Vaiphei, finished his mission this week and is returning home to Delhi. He is the only Church member from where he is from, so he is looking to baptize his family and get the Church started and established in his home tow. Pretty cool stuff!
This week was a pretty good week. I heard from some of the members in my last area in the Philippines that four of the investigators that we taught got baptized! So that is pretty exciting news! They were all really good and so that makes me really happy. Two of them are about mission age and both are hoping that a year from now they can also serve missions. It is so cool to see the Lord's hand in the work that goes on here.
Other than that, we have a few investigators that are progressing. One of them, his name is Ravi. He is 16 and he is studying in what would be in the U.S. his junior year of high school. He is really really smart. He speaks almost perfect English. His father passed away while he was a kid and so he studies everyday, goes to school, and then he goes to work from 5 to 11. Then Saturday and Sunday he also works from 11 to 11. He is the busiest kid I have ever met. He makes only 2400 rupees per month. In the U.S. at the rate he is getting paid, would be making 40 times more for the hours that he works than he does here. It's amazing. He has incredible faith and I'm honored to teach him. Oh and we tracted into him which is like the 4th investigator I have ever found tracting.
Things here are good. Slow, but good. We continue to work in all diligence. That is the key. Working through trials may be one of the hardest things that we have to do, but that is when real growth comes. As we come to understand the Lord, His purposes and works, the Plan of Salvation, and the Atonement of Jesus Christ, working through the trials means everything. I'm grateful for all I've learned on my mission and will continue to learn.
Love,
Elder Head
Monday, January 6, 2014
Visakhaptnam 1-5-14
Hello everyone!
Happy New Year?
I can't believe that it is already 2014! 2013 went by way too fast! I was thinking about how this time last year I was in Hyderabad with Elder Nepali.. This year for New Year's was a little bit more fun because I like all the guys that I live with. Not that I didn't like my housemates last year, but there are 4 Americans living in one apartment and so it was pretty fun to just hang out. We were disobedient and stayed up until midnight... But it was my last New Year's in India and we wanted to celebrate in style! We ordered two pizza's from Pizza Hut and drank something called Appy Fizz. It's like Sparkling Cider, but not as fancy. So it was a pretty normal New Year's I guess!
How was everyone else's? Did you do anything exciting or fun? I bet it might have been a little bit more interesting than mine, but it was still good!
This week was a pretty standard week. We worked really hard and we have been trying to find some new investigators. We visited all the members, try to find those less-active or inactive members, tract, and do all kinds of different things to find new investigators.... And nothing works. Haha we did find a few potentials and we met one of them this week, but they don't really seem super interested, but we will keep working and try to help them. We also found this REALLY good potential family. They are Hindu, but like Jesus Christ and have been praying to Him and want to be baptized, so we set an appointment and then we went there on Sunday, but they said they wouldn't meet with us because they were painting..... :(
It was really frustrating. Haha I was so stoked to finally find some investigators and they would progress and the members would see that we are serious and working hard then they would give us referrals and things would start to move along. However, it just wasn't that day. I love how sometimes the Lord humbles us. It is hard to take and sometimes I want to ask "why?" But I know that it is the Lord's plan. It is His work. He is in charge. I'm just along for the ride. I hope and pray that I might be able to continue on in the work, through the good and the bad. I'm grateful for the Atonement. It puts everything into perspective that Jesus Christ knows EXACTLY what I'm going through right now. He knows all of the ups and all the downs. That is comforting to me.
The work continues here in Vizag 1st Branch. Slowly, but surely it progresses.
Love you!
Elder Head
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